Les Semaines

June 6, 2004

Jim's home and all's back the way it should be. I've already gotten cranky at him for the chaos the house is back in and he's already gotten cranky at me for being cranky and so all's well with the world.

He got home on Tuesday as planned but because of ferry changes and complications he only had one night in Victoria on the way home instead of two. He had a wonderful time with beaches and forests and abandoned villages and eagles and ravens. So hard to leave a place like that and come back to the city and work and your old life with nothing changed.

We had a busy and fun weekend, though. Went to dinner and to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with friends. I loved seeing it the second time, knowing what was happening from the first. It only gets more interesting on repeated viewings. Had our Saturday morning writing session, and this time Jim came because he wanted to be sure to get some writing time in and his usual time was booked. Then in the late afternoon we met with other friends to go and see the third Harry Potter movie, which I liked a lot (despite the complaints about compression I've read it worked just fine for me) and then Pho soup for dinner.

Today was a slow morning, luckily, and then we went to pick up a friend from a bus that never came (well it did eventually, but we didn't manage to find him though another friend did) and then went to a backyard concert with Veda Hille and Mary Lydia Ryan in Mary's backyard. It was great to see Veda for the first time in two years and it has been even a little longer to Mary who has been busy with her new family. It started to rain partway through Veda's set and we adjourned inside. Very cozy, but wonderful music.

A good and eventful weekend. And Jim's home again and there's two weeks to finish getting everything ready for this year's Clarion West workshop. Whew!

Guy Gavriel Kay's The Last Light of the Sun was, like all his novels, absorbing and had characters I would have been happy to read about forever. This novel is based in his alternate world, this story taking place in analogues of the Viking world and of the Irish/Welsh/Anglo-Saxon peoples that the Vikings raided. There are characters to draw you into the world of each of these groups. A wholly delightful novel.

Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls is another absorbing novel that I had trouble putting down. In this story a royal grandmother who had been rather battered by the gods and by her history decides she is tired of confinement in her rural castle and that she will go on pilgrimage. She doesn't count on running into an invasion of her country and confronting both more sorcerers and the gods and history again--or that she will re-discover love. A charming novel and hooray for women over 40 having both adventures and romance.